stai visitando "un raggio di soul", il sito ... soulful as always !
NORTHERN SOUL
" STUPID" ... "BRILLIANT " ... "BIASED" ... "ACCURATE" ... "COMPLETELY FALSE" ..."LONG OVERDUE" ... JUST A FEW OF THE MORE PRINTABLE COMMENTS FROM THE FLOOD OF LETTERS WHICH FOLLOWED OUR TELL-IT-LIKE-IT-IS FEATURE ON NORTHERN SOUL IN THE JUNE ISSUE.
WE ONLY HAVE SPACE FOR A SELECTION OF 'EM, SO HERE GOES
Indietro all'Agosto 1974, quando la contrapposizione Wigan Casino / Blackpool Mecca era l'argomento del giorno e quando un commento a favore di un locale o dell'altro scatenava polemiche infinite ... "Black Music" ( in vendita al prezzo di 25p ) era allora uno dei magazines dove le opinioni contrastanti dei soul fans potevano avere voce, trascinandosi in dibattiti infiniti, con intere pagine occupate dalle missive infuocate dei lettori
"The worst thing about your article was the fact that 80% of your readers, who haven't attended the Mecca or Wigan casino, might believe it.
I also write reports on acts and places i've visited - which appeared in "Hot Buttered Soul", but like most writers, i make sure they are my opinions (first hand) and not hearsay from other people.
I certainly wouldn't visit Wigan for opinions about Blackpool or vice-versa, as Mr.Cummings seems to have done : it's like asking Liverpool Supporters for their opinion of Everton !
One of the worst results of the article is that it seems too enjoy bringing out the bad points of the Northern Scene, yet one quote stands out "No one person makes the the northern scene. It is a collective thing which makes every person as important as the next. It's the best there is
Every club on the northern scene is as important as the other. PLEASE don't try to create a feud between the casino and the Mecca.
About five years ago the mecca gave me on appetite for Northern Soul. I admire they loyal fans as much as the ones in Wigan.
Before employing Richard Searling full time i had different DJs every week, but as Ian Levine insisted on playing his obscurities and stopped playing any sound as soon as it was popular and so, in the interest of the dancers, we parted company I could stir it up any time I liked : Colin Courtis bought more sounds from Simon Soussan on his last visit than any other DJ. Ian Levine wanted to buy records from him ... but what's the point in all this mud-slinging ?
A lot of people enjoy themselves at Wigan and at the Mecca etc ... why try to split up. Wigan is one of the very few clubs in the country where the drug-squad has been in and caught no-one. That doesn't get printed does it ?
I'm all for record companies releasing our big sounds - but they don't do they ? So if a firm decides the fans want a record why not let it become available at 85p instead of £8 or so - at least people who can't travel to our clubs can they hear the sounds they read about and it spreads soul a little further - british record companies aren't interested.
Where would Major Lance, Robert Knight, JJ Barnes etc... be without pressings - probably just surviving like Eddie Foster .
J.J. Barnes got little out of legal records he made for Ric-Tic - I think there would be more complaint if pressings were stopped completely
- Russ Winstanley, Baytree Road, Wigan, Lancs -
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HOW well you have summed up the scene as it stands at the moment.
As you may know, I have been on the soul scene for many years now and used to DJ at the Twisted Wheel in Manchester. For some time now I have seen the whole scene deteriorate apart from the odd group who have set themselves apart from the masses on the scene, as being the true soul fans who are interested in the music only, not being on an ego trip, or out to make money from the scene.
Your article said what has needed to be said for a lon long time, even though it was rather personal to some time DJs. Your summing up of how the bootleggers change names on the records they press (e.g. the sunlovers became Eddie Parker and the Sunlovers ) was beautifully thought out, and can only do a lot of good, because now the public will know exactly what is going on.
Thanks for a great article
LES COKELL, St.John Row, Langcliffe,Settle,Yorke -
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It makes a refreshing change to read a magazine which is not afraid to name the people involved in the bootlegging scene.
But I find it hard to believe that you found more than one person against pressing - unless they were members of Ian Levine's fans club.
At all nighters th conversation revolves around two subjects : sounds and drugs.
These people who said that drugs have very little to do with northern soul are either very naive ( what we in nottingham call Soul Twats ) or you can count the number of allnighters they have attended in one hand.
In your review of DJs, you slate Soul Sam. The majority of people consider him, not levine to be the number one.
You say he plays too much pop. well you are the one who calls it soul.
The musical content and "soulfulness" have nothing to do with whether a record is playedor not. The "over-riding" factor (as Yu rightly state ) is the beat, and whether the record is popular.
You also dismiss Kev Roberts too quickly. He does know a lot about soul music (as you would know if you have spoken to him ) and I wonder if you know that he is only 17.
Apart from these few criticism the article was very good and long overdue
- DENNY HENDY , Hillfield Road, Stapleford, Notts -
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Pills, pressings, pop and profiteers are like a cancer which must be cut out if this kind of music is to survive to serve the small crowd of "true" fans, who ask for a good time and good rare sounds.
Thanksfor such a brilliant write-up
- RAYMOND BEECHAM, King Stret, Kindsgrove, Stoke on trent, Staffs -
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You must have interviewed thousand of brothers and sisters and chose one or two who don't go to Wigan or don't drop gear.
Wigan is one of the greatest things that has happened on the Nortern Scene since the Torch, and you slag it down.
I know Blackpool is a great place but the praiseit was given is ridicolous. The sound at Wigan are immaculate and, as you say, the pop sounds are a part of the northern Scene. I went to an alldayer at Newcastle where ian Levine ( the Blackpool DJ ) was spinning the sounds and they were exactly the same as they play in Wigan - and they say the Wigan sound is not as good as Blackpool. Huh !
My advice to critics of the Wigan Crowd is to go and find out what it is really like because I doubt if they have ever been there
NEIL TOWELL, Newbury Street, Lambourn, Berkshire
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I was appalled by your pulling down of one of the top soul DJs : Soul Sam.
I have attended many discos he has DJ'd at and have never heard him play any "pop music", as you put it, at all
VICKI THORPE, Lindsey Road, Stamford, Lincs
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The northern soul article must be one of the most inaccurate and biased which i have ever read. You have little knowledge of the Northern soul scene and even less appreciation of the music involved.
It was stated that I play "unknown pop records", a criticism which was levelled at no other DJ yet the played sounds of all DJs have at least 60% of the same titles.
All right, I played "Hawaii Five-O" once at Stoke, for a joke, and the kids kept asking to hear it again; who I am I playing for, myself or the kids ? If the former I'd soon be out of a job !
The reference to "pop" really amused me - after all who first played "Ghost In My House" and "Love On A Mountain Top" ? On his own admission : Ian Levine. And look what has happened to these sounds ! I'm not knocking Ian, whose ability to discover great unknowns is considerable.
Also I'm not knocking the records which were commercial soul dancers (not pop) and deserved to sell. Does Tony Cummings consider "Three Degrees" "MFSB", Harold melvin etc.. pop ?
They certainly are commercial, but they isn't the aim of making a record to have a hit ? Don't kid me that anyone makes a disc to suit the "esoteric" (does Cummings know any other adjective ) tastes of Brother Tony !
The discs any of us play must have a certain commercial appeal, in sound, rhythm and tune or they'd never catch on at all ! A number of them could go "pop" at any time and who has broughtthem to the notice of the public ?
Next, my so-called faux-pas on the "Go Head On" disc. The record I played is in fact the "B-side" of "Sign of the Crab" which came out on Action UK in 1969, so where did Cummings get his information from ?
A further glaring error was the statement that Richard Searling gets most of his sounds from Simon Soussan, which just isn't true. In fact it wasn't mentioned that I had any sounds from this source, yet I admit to my eternal shame : I have been one of Soussan's biggest customers, until a month ago, when he started pressing sounds sent by me as swaps.
Also Keith Minshull does not work with Chris Burton any more. I quote these facts simply to expose ignorance of the person entrusted to write this column. To quell any suspicion that "I'm the joker in the pack", i've been buying predominantly soul records since 1962, starting at the "Scene" club in London , up through Motown, Stateside and the Atlantic boom of the 60's to the Northern scene of today.
I can see nothing wrong in making a commercial disc be the person black or white, but I do objet to blatanty noisy, racial or ultra-repetitive records. In this category I put such seemingly strange bed-fellows as Slade, Alice Cooper, Suzy Quatro, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown ( his funky music since 1969 ) and Kool And The Gang, who to my ears have been responsible for some of te most ear repelling junk it has been my misfortune to suffer.
I would suggest in any future look at the Northern Scene you at least chose someone, who is not only articulate, but also has some knowledge of what he's writing about. The one really good thing was Cummings' exposure of the evil pressing exploitation, yet if the record companies don't issue the records how are the kids to get the sounds they hear ?
SOUL SAM ( Martin Barnfather ) High St., Overton On Dee - Nr Wrexham (North Wales)
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The Majority of the people who call themselves "northern soul brothers and sisters" don't know what soul really is.
The DJs who strive to play these so-called "rarities" are just on one big ego trip. If I came across a good soul record, my first thought would be to let as many friends to hear it as I could. That way the person who really deserved to get some bread ( the artist ) would get it.
As for the fans, if anyone can enjoy sounds played at stupid loud levels the they must be tone deaf. Secondly, there are hundreds of records which one can dance to all night and without the DJ having to repeat one record.
Another point : if so many people think they are soul fans, why are so many records released not bought in greater numbers than they are ?
Like the Undisputed Truth's " Smiling Faces Sometimes " The Trammp's " Love Epidemic " Jackie Moore's "Time" ... I could go on and on.
I've never been to Whitchurch or Newcastle and After reading about the loudness of the sound system I have no wish to go.
Instead I will go to hear and dance to the music I love over a good sound system in a pleasant atmosphere at the Catacombs Club in London.
GORDON DAVIES, Penmon Close, Blacon, Chester
( continua ... )